ATTRIBUTED TO ANTOINE DE FAVRAY | Portrait of a lady in Turkish dress seated in an armchair

Jephson family, Mallow Castle, County Cork, Ireland, from circa 1830.

Originally from Paris, Antoine de Favray moved to Rome before 1738, were he studied at the prestigious Académie de France based in the Villa Medici under the director Jean François de Troy. He later moved to Malta in 1744, where he remained for the rest of his life, with the exception of a nine-year-long stay in Turkey. Favray and his contemporaries depicted Turkish subjects from a Western perspective, creating fascinating interpretations of what was at the time a very distant and exotic way of life.